It’s not over yet

As I look out my window this morning and watch leaves fall all around I am thinking…

It’s not over yet

The it, in the sentence above being fall and the time of year when I can bask in the beauty all around me without wearing long underwear, down coat, boots, hat, and mittens. The more I attempt to hold on to fall because of what I think is coming next, the more melancholy I get.

But when I just work on staying in the present moment things are pretty good.

And it’s true, fall is not over yet. With a high temperature yesterday of 80 degrees and more 80 degree weather forecast for Friday I am full of gratitude for the beauty, grace, and warmth of these days.

Yesterday I hung out on the deck swing, enjoyed wide open windows all around the house, and watched the beauty around me with glittering eyes and great gratitude as I drove on the back roads and streets to do my Food Coop weekly shopping. There are several streets and roads that I know are breathtakingly beautiful this year so I always take those routes instead of the main highways and roads.

Basking in beauty

As I did yoga with a recording of a past Soma Yoga class  I had attended (via Zoom), the sun streamed in the windows and Gracie (my cat) and I basked in the sun while I practiced breathing and moving just so. Ahhhh… I thought, on a scale of 1 to 10 I’m at 15 right now.

Despite the craziness of the times we are living in, life is good, life is beautiful, and life is a blessing.  To be able to experience the beauty of the earth is also a blessing. (Let’s hear it for counting blessings.)

Here is a blessing for you from one of my favorite writes, John O’Donnohue.

“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Remember, it’s not over yet. Bask in the beauty of these days.

May you walk in beauty.